Soooooooooooo pissed.........

brettw22

This is 95% a Windows 7 vent........

I had to move a bunch of files from a laptop going bye bye and I went to the My Documents and copied (or cut....don't remember) that folder and pasted it to a thumb drive (about 4GB worth). It worked fine and there were no problems.

I clicked off the thumb drive and back onto it to verify that the documents and everything was there and it was, so I clicked back to the My Documents folder on my C: and highlighted everything and deleted it.

Went back to my thumb drive to remove it and take to the new machine and all the contents were gone...........EVERYTHING.

SOMEhow when I moved the contents to the thumbdrive, it changed the data pathway for my C:\users\me to G:\documents, so what I ultimately did was to copy 4GB of data to the thumbdrive, and inadvertantly turn right around and deleted everything because who the %^$#&*^$%&*^^%( would think that the C:Documents flipped drives.........

Trying to recover as much as I can, but recovery programs are a complete piece of **** in that they don't show you exact information all the time........I've downloaded 4 of them to try and find all my stuff.......we'll see, but I've spent the better part of 6 hours jackin around with this shite.........

Conradicles

Oh I thought this was going to be an Audiogon rant...carry on.

mantis

I'm so sorry you have to deal with all that. Windows sucks **** bro, sorry to say .
On a mac you have this awesome backup called Time Machine. You can buy a new computer and just connect it to your network and recover every single file you have and do nothing to do so other then tell it to do. Basically you have a backup hard drive on your network or connected directly(pointless but effective). The mac backs up all your stuff on a hourly basis or so how you choose. Then when you decide it's time for a new computer or if your computer fails or worse hard drive goes bad , nothing gets lost at all. You just buy a new computer , connect up and reinstall all your stuff on auto pilot . It's so damn nice man , I really wish Windows worked as well then you wouldn't have so many problems saving and transferring your programs to another computer.
Maybe someone on here can help you with your issues or have better ways to manage windows.

DarqueKnight

brettw22 wrote: »

Went back to my thumb drive to remove it and take to the new machine and all the contents were gone...........EVERYTHING.

Just so I'm clear...you are not regularly backing up your important documents on another drive?:sad:

brettw22

I read about Time Machine with the Mac's........would be nice, but oh well......

Baby steps DK, baby steps........lol

AsSiMiLaTeD

I'm sure there are backup options for windows that work as well as time machine on the Mac.

I don't think apple invented the idea of backups or have done anything to really improve or revolutionize it.

You just gotta have that stuff turned on, and if he didn't have it enabled in windows then I doubt he'd have it enabled on the Mac either.

There are reasons to own a Mac over a pc and vice versa, this isn't one of them.

mdaudioguy

mantis wrote: »

I'm so sorry you have to deal with all that. Windows sucks **** bro, sorry to say .
On a mac you have this awesome backup called Time Machine. You can buy a new computer and just connect it to your network and recover every single file you have and do nothing to do so other then tell it to do. Basically you have a backup hard drive on your network or connected directly(pointless but effective). The mac backs up all your stuff on a hourly basis or so how you choose. Then when you decide it's time for a new computer or if your computer fails or worse hard drive goes bad , nothing gets lost at all. You just buy a new computer , connect up and reinstall all your stuff on auto pilot . It's so damn nice man , I really wish Windows worked as well then you wouldn't have so many problems saving and transferring your programs to another computer.
Maybe someone on here can help you with your issues or have better ways to manage windows.

Oooohhh, bow down to the Mac! Really, I've got 7 Windows 7 computers in the house (and a Mac for good measure) and this kind of stuff has never happened to me. Everything worth anything gets backed up regularly.

Sorry this happened, Brett, but it's really not a Windows problem. I work with a guy that cusses Microsoft throughout the day, but the problem is that he simply doesn't know how to use the software...

nooshinjohn

can you run windows restore and go back to the previous date that everything was there? just run the program and reboot it from yesterday

Polkersince85

This outfit may help in the future. Good luck getting it all back.

http://www.carbonite.com/en/

brettw22

According to Microsoft, restore would not restore deleted files.

While I'm beating myself for not backing up, this is not a backup problem. There is something bizarre that would cause a copy/paste of a folder to somehow redirect your C:\Documents to an external source. I have NEVER heard of this happening, so it would have never crossed my mind to check before copying files that they are actually the drive letter they are designed to be.........

dudeinaroom

did you check the recycle bin?

BeefJerky

I'm with most of the other posters here. The central problem is a lack of backups, not Windows. If you had backed up your data regularly, if wouldn't matter that Windows changed the path, or that your files got deleted. I also wouldn't have tried to delete anything on the "old" computer until the files were safe and secure on the new computer.

I wasn't aware that Windows 7 would do what you describe, but I do know that it is the first version of Windows that provides an easy way to change the locations for user folders (documents, videos, pictures, etc). The way I was aware of to do it is to right-click on one of the folders, select properties and look at the location tab. I've changed the locations of all the user folders (except for the desktop folder) on my laptop to my 2TB RAID array.

At any rate, I love Windows 7. It is what Windows Vista was supposed to be.

tonyb

Windows 7 has a transfer program for just the same reason Brett. Thing is you have to download it on the new computer, and the old one, for it to work. More of a pain in the **** than a mac. Also windows 7 does do backup on it's own, you just have to turn it on when you set it up. Now, I'm not sure about every version of windows 7, but mine is the home office version whatever that means.

WilliamM2

Easy transfer comes installed by default. All you need is a thumb drive. Also, the very first time you boot Win7, it asks you if you want to set up a backup, or create an image. If those instructions are ignored, I'm not sure what else Windows is expected to do.

As dude suggested, if you just deleted the files, they should be in the recycle bin. Unless you also emptied the bin before checking the thumb drive.

BeefJerky

WilliamM2 wrote: »

As dude suggested, if you just deleted the files, they should be in the recycle bin. Unless you also emptied the bin before checking the thumb drive.

Or if he did a shift-delete. Or if he turned off the recycle bin for the drive.

Serendipity

This makes no sense.

If you simply copied the "My Documents" folder to your flash drive, which I have done many times, and then gone to your C: drive, then you wouldn't have a "My Documents" folder left on your C: drive. So I don't understand how you deleted a folder that no longer exists.

However, if you copied the "My Documents" folder to the flash drive, then went to Start -> My Documents which is a shortcut, then yes the shortcut would point to the directory on your flash drive.

Windows has always done this and you can set your "My Pictures", "Videos", and other shortcuts to point to external drives.

Serendipity

^^ copied as in moved the the folder to your flash drive...

By doing so you have set the shortcuts on your Start Menu to point to the flash drive.

Syndil

Sounds like he created a symbolic link for his My Documents folder to the thumb drive, mistakenly thought he had actually copied the contents of his My Documents folder to the thumb drive, and then deleted his actual My Documents folder, which was currently residing on the thumb drive. Although I don't know how you accidentally create a symbolic link.

But yes, there should be backups. Can't blame the lack of a backup on a particular OS.

pitdogg2

nooshinjohn wrote: »

can you run windows restore and go back to the previous date that everything was there? just run the program and reboot it from yesterday

great minds think alike... I've done this it has worked for me in the past.

you may be able to go into the program files go to recycler folder and restore data. you may get a bunch more than you need but at least you found it.
by the way i use XP so this may not exist on W7.

brettw22

Well I was able to restore the files by using the previous versions tab and recovering everything.

Instead of doing a 'copy' I may have done a cut/paste of the My Documents folder to the thumb drive.....but at no point did I go and modify the pathway for my documents folder, and it was a mental lapse to not question why the documents folder still existed with a 'cut' having been done.

There was nothing in the recycle bin to recover because of the cut. As for the relocating of the documents pathway, since when can you go in and modify this? If it's something that's always existed.that's news to me, but definitely something that shouldn't automatically happen because of copying files......ever.

All of the above being said, backups are being done and being more careful with copying files......

BeefJerky

Glad to hear you got your files back!

I think the path was changed only because you moved the entire folder. If you had simply moved the files inside of the folder (rather than the folder itself) it wouldn't have changed the path. It also wouldn't have changed the path if you had simply copied the folder rather than moving it.

As I mentioned, the ability to change the path of the user folders is a new thing in Windows 7. In addition to the way that you discovered, there is a way to do it via the properties for that folder.

Syndil

BeefJerky wrote: »

As I mentioned, the ability to change the path of the user folders is a new thing in Windows 7.

Nitpicking, but TweakUI accomplished this via registry edits in XP, and the Windows 7 functionality exists in Vista as well. But of course Windows 7 is essentially a rebadged, reskinned version of Vista. Shh, don't tell the Vista haters.

nadams

BeefJerky wrote: »

As I mentioned, the ability to change the path of the user folders is a new thing in Windows 7. In addition to the way that you discovered, there is a way to do it via the properties for that folder.

You can do it with the "My Documents" folder in XP. We do it all the time to redirect users folders to their network drive. If you have the "My Documents" icon on the desktop, it's in the properties window. It even asks if you want to copy the existing contents over.

inspiredsports

Sounds like you created a shortcut on the thumb drive, not an actual copy of your files.

Also, never delete the thumb contents until you are certain you made the transfer.

Unfortunately, I can't agree that this was a Windows error.

brettw22

New feature, hack, or whatever, there's no reason that there shouldn't be a warning screen mentioning that you're changing the location of a system folder to something other than the default drive....and i'm all for eliminating as many of the irritating 'are you sure' questions from the mix, but this is a pretty big change that people should know about IMO......

Serendipity

brettw22 wrote: »

New feature, hack, or whatever, there's no reason that there shouldn't be a warning screen mentioning that you're changing the location of a system folder to something other than the default drive....and i'm all for eliminating as many of the irritating 'are you sure' questions from the mix, but this is a pretty big change that people should know about IMO......

It does warn you in XP, but for a different reason. If you have some files in the "My Documents" folder that needs to be accessed by a program, such as by a video editing program, it will tell you that the files are currently in use and cannot be moved.

I remember this when working with Adobe Premiere on a student film project and couldn't get the "My Documents" to move because some files were needed by Premiere due to linking or something like that.

Also, it asks to move certain "Thumbs.db" files if you have a photo library in "My Pictures."

Either way, cutting the "My Documents" folder to another drive makes the shortcut on your Start Menu point to that external drive. IIRC, it's always been like that.

BeefJerky

Syndil wrote: »

Nitpicking, but TweakUI accomplished this via registry edits in XP, and the Windows 7 functionality exists in Vista as well. But of course Windows 7 is essentially a rebadged, reskinned version of Vista. Shh, don't tell the Vista haters.

You are indeed correct about TweakUI. I'll admit that I haven't heavily used XP in quite awhile, so my memory may be a bit fuzzy in that area. :cheesygrin:

As far as Vista goes, I only used it for a relatively short period of time (both x86 and x64 versions), so I don't think I ever went looking for that feature.

At any rate, the RTM version of Vista was horrible with major bugs that never should have made it past the RC phase. SP1 brought it to where it should have been upon release. However, I disagree with your statement that Win7 is "essentially a rebadged, reskinned version of Vista." I've used both Vista and Win7 on the same hardware in a few cases. In all those cases, Win7 was more responsive and faster to boot and shutdown. Maybe it's the newer kernel, or maybe there are other enhancements under the hood; I'm not really sure. Either way, Win7 is worth the upgrade from Vista in my opinion. I also believe that Win7 was what Vista should have been.

nadams wrote: »

You can do it with the "My Documents" folder in XP. We do it all the time to redirect users folders to their network drive. If you have the "My Documents" icon on the desktop, it's in the properties window. It even asks if you want to copy the existing contents over.

As mentioned, my memory of XP is a bit fuzzy, so I apologize if I gave incorrect information. However, it does seem that Vista and Win7 are the first ones to be able to change the special folders aside from My Documents without the use of a separate program.

mantis

mdaudioguy wrote: »

Oooohhh, bow down to the Mac! Really, I've got 7 Windows 7 computers in the house (and a Mac for good measure) and this kind of stuff has never happened to me. Everything worth anything gets backed up regularly.

Sorry this happened, Brett, but it's really not a Windows problem. I work with a guy that cusses Microsoft throughout the day, but the problem is that he simply doesn't know how to use the software...

You don't have to bow down to anything , windows isn't as easy to back up your files as a mac , thats all. When you get another computer , it's even easier on a mac as it transfers everything for you off your time machine backup. It's so nice and easy for the end user , you 3rd party software required.
I know windows has a restore program which in theory should work just like Time machine but over the years I have used it , it never worked as promised.
Glad to see you got your files back Brett , do yourself a favor and learn about backing up your stuff on a regular basis so this scary thing doesn't happen again.